The word is possibly of Celtic origin (Welsh crwth) and a doublet of the archaic crowd, or crowth, a fiddle. Both rote and crowth are used by Spenser. Crowd is perhaps not yet obsolete in dialect, and the fiddler in Hudibras is called Crowdero. Thus Rutter may be a doublet of Crowther. There may be other possible etymologies for Rutter, but those discussed will suffice to show that the origin of occupative names is not always easily guessed.
Since the above was written I have found strong evidence for the "fiddler" derivation of the name. In 1266 it was decided by a Lancashire jury that Richard le Harper killed William le Roter, or Ruter, in self-defence. I think there can be little doubt that some, if not all, of our Rutters owe their names to the profession represented by this enraged musician. William le Citolur and William le Piper also appear from the same record (Patent Rolls) to have indulged in homicide in the course of the year.
[CHAPTER XVII THE CANTERBURY PILGRIMS]
In Southwerk at the Tabard as I lay,
Redy to wenden on my pilgrymage,
To Caunterbury with ful devout corage,
At nyght were come into that hostelrye
Wel nyne and twenty in a compaignye
Of sondry folk, by aventure y-falle
In felaweshipe, and pilgrimes were they alle,
That toward Caunterbury wolden ryde."
(Prologue, 1. 20.)
This famous band of wayfarers includes representatives of all classes, save the highest and the lowest, just at the period when our surnames were becoming fixed. It seems natural to distinguish the following groups. The leisured class is represented by the Knight (Chapter XV) and his son the Squire, also found as Swire or Swyer, Old Fr. escuyer (écuyer), a shield-bearer (Lat. Scutum), with their attendant Yeoman, a name that originally meant a small landowner and later a trusted attendant of the warlike kind—
"And in his hand he baar a myghty bow"
(A, 108.)
With these goes the Franklin (Chapter XV), who had been Sherriff, i.e. shire-reeve. He is also described as a Vavasour (p. ii)—
"Was nowher such a worthy vavasour" (A, 360.)